The Books of Enoch Revealed
- occultwatkins
- Jan 14
- 3 min read
The following article is featured in Issue: 84 of Watkins Mind, Body, Spirit Magazine
About the Author: TOBIAS CHURTON unlocks Western occult mysteries—from Gnosticism to Freemasonry. Honorary Fellow of Exeter University and acclaimed author of The Lost Pillars of Enoch and Gnostic Philosophy, he brings forgotten spiritual worlds to life through revelatory books on Ashmole, Blake, Crowley, and Gurdjieff.
Why be interested in the books of Enoch?
Champion of Enoch studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, James H. Charlesworth, remarked in 2005 that during the 1970s, theology didn't take the Book of Enoch seriously. Today, theology does take Enoch seriously. Currency in academe, however, has hardly reached the intelligent layperson. This book is intended to fill that gap—and fill it well. Evidence for Enoch's remarkable endurance is revealed by tracing the extraordinary story of how, from the second century BCE right through to our own time, the books of Enoch have been received.
Many of us will welcome insight into how belief in a coming era of salvation, judgment, and destruction of evil—the familiar apocalyptic package—came about. Investigating Enochic prophecy gives us the lens to see the illuminating picture in perspective. Challenging to many inherited ideas, the texts may at first appear strange, but closer acquaintance reveals surprisingly familiar territory; the books of Enoch "ring bells."
Enochic tradition also illuminates the primary aspiration of mysticism: ascension to the source of the universe and all being—"heaven," culminating in the glory of God's presence.
Proceeding, we gain insight into the notion and origin of evil, as understood by religious men in the Second Temple period (ca. 538 BCE–70 CE). We see the first flowering of what would become a key component of Christianity revealed as a Second Temple–era Jewish project: an apocalyptic "last-chance saloon" before God's coming to judge his creation and institute a new one.
Many readers will find Enochic tradition profoundly compelling because it prefigures and enlightens our understanding of the spiritual framework and itinerary of the Jesus movement of the first and second centuries CE. Enochic writings reveal the subtlety, complexity, urgency, and curious logic of late–Second Temple Judaic thought, casting light upon what we know of the origins and authentic meaning of Christianity.
Recent years have witnessed a surge of references to Enoch on the internet. Much of the interest has focused on a supposition that the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) has been hidden for some two thousand years, and that its apparent revelation in our times constitutes a sign disclosing knowledge of an imminent end of the world. Speculation on the Enochic myth of fallen angels and "nephilim" has also linked Enoch to von Dänikenesque scenarios of extraterrestrial knowledge supposedly seeding a remote past with promise of bearing perilous fruit in our own times.
The Books of Enoch Revealed clarifies the field, confuting many errors of understanding of history and ideas. I hope readers share my conviction that sober fact, responsibly researched and clearly presented, is more truly sensational than un- or misinformed speculations with stridently overconfident interpretations of ancient texts.
Taking all this into account, The Books of Enoch Revealed aims to be the world's most comprehensive, up-to-date, single-work presentation of the Enochic field, based firmly on the research and discoveries of the world's leading scholars of the subject from late antiquity to the present day.
Last but not least, we may ask: What is the spiritual value of Enoch? While this is not a question entirely congenial for scholars careful to avoid "value judgments," it is a question people may ask for themselves. My hope is that by furnishing readers with the first and only informed aggregate of the best scholarship available on Enoch, this book may enable you to enjoy that question—along with many others—including questions such as: Should the Book of Enoch be included in canonical scripture, as it has been for centuries . . . in Ethiopia?
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